The Kitten - Short Story
June 30, 2020
Thanks to the
Corona out break, my brothers and I , the only sister to them are together for
a longer period after a lapse of nearly a year.Parents too were quite happy as it was the emotional
reunion. Mum has repeatedly told us. ‘You
are now grown up. You must learn to handle the household duties on your own.’
‘You must follow the traditions and norms of the family and society ‘ insisted
dad. After the urge of the parents we’ve decided to relieve our parents from
some of the New year chores. Cleaning the house and the compound is one of the
major tasks. As we do not have any prior experience of the household chores, we
took everything lightly. But once started, the work went on for three long
days. The whole house was dusted. The cobweb nets and dust on the high walls
and rafters and tiles on the roof of the house were cleaned with the help of a
long pole, the top of which was tied with a top of a coconut leaf. The floor of
the house was washed. Trivial unimportant things and empty containers that
dominated the house were thrown out. The compound was cleaned up with a lot of
cutting and chopping. Chairback, curtains, rugs etc were washed and changed.
Furniture set was taken out to the courtyard, the whole house was cleaned and
it looked holy and rejuvenated.
Since we were not familiar with the household chores,
we were really exhausted by the series of activities. I was lazily getting up when mum put me
up. The morning sun was shining bright, the cuckoo was cooing enthusiastically,
crows were cawing busily and the Seven Sisters were chirping and squeaking in
the mango trees that surround my ancient home.
Apart from all these familiar sounds of birds a
strange unfamiliar squealing came from the back shed of my home. I ran to the
shed where my parents’ motor bikes are parked, firewood arranged in two stacks
for the rainy season and a few empty cardboard boxes dumped during our cleaning
process two days ago. The squealing came from one of these boxes and I tiptoed
to the box to find what it was. Three little mouse like things were lying in
the box cuddling one another. I could not identity what they were. My mum
peeped into the box and said, a triplet kittens. I was thrilled to see those
little things snuggling in the rags for love, care and warmth. My brothers too
had a view of the three new arrivals . we wondered why the mother cat has found
one of those boxes a convenient closet with basic amenities to deliver her
rarest progenies.
Mum warned me not to disturb the mother cat. ‘Let her
be free to feed the babies’ and she added ‘Safety of newborns is the priority
of mothers and they put the kids to bed they make quite often and carry their
babies to and fro in their mouth’. Words of mum dawned me a truth of nature.
After an hour or so my eager eyes peeped into the box
and I was dismayed to see a kitten missing. When does the mother cat visit her
box of kids? When does she leave or remove her baby? Nobody knows. All remains
a mystery.
Mum said it must be the feline lady who had seen
lingering in the bushes of crotons and hibiscus near the left overs of the
dinner plate of our doggy, Duke. She gave a clear picture of the cat as ‘young
and fair, milk white in complexion except one or two black scars on her tiny
round face and on her slender body. A small made one who always walk with her
feline grace. She is also agile in her
looks and moves and she disappears before she is clearly seen.’ Since she is aregular visitor to our home she must be living in the neighbourhood ‘ mothermade her assumption. I imagine she curls herself up in the fireless hearth ofher home and wait till the sun sinks in the west, neon lights go off and menand women close their eyes like shuttering down of laptops for repose after aday’s hard labour. With darkness she descends out in the wild and makes herunwelcome visits to my humble home, an old one quite big with a number of homely traces.
The palatial
home of mine has many a window with three panels, left open mostly, on summer
nights when weather’s rather warm and sweaty.
Like the
powerful ‘July winds’ in our area she pierces through a convenient window in
pursuit of titbits left out of containers negligently. The inmates of the house
could feel the feline touch only the next morning and the leftovers are thrown
out for our doggy Duke, a mixed breed of Pomeranian, ferocious in nature. In addition, occasionally, dad has seen her
moving in the dark like a ghost and with the flash of light she jumps out the
window and faces the growl and chase of our Duke.
No inmates of
my home vehemently opposed her nocturnal intrusion as her nightly apparitions
dispel rodents – the intolerable nuisance.
A long
squealing heard again after another hour. I stealthily went to the box of
treasures and shocked to find another kitten missing. Looked around to see the
mother carrying her baby. No trace of a cat visible in the close vicinity.
The only
kitte left behind is squealing eagerly waiting for her mother’s arrival. From
morn to evening we too, were expecting her but she did not turn up. The poor
thing had become thinner and thinner without mother’s feeding. The squealing
grew weaker and weaker. After the disappearance of the mother cat two nights
have passed, still the poor creature lay curling up in the rags wriggling with
hunger.
Many a time,
the cat has been to my home beguiling the attention of everyone at home. She
has been there to deliver a triplet, to feed the three for two days and to
remove two of them camouflaging the attention all the inmates.
Why
did she leave back a poor creature not matured enough to open its own eyes?
Why
did the mother refuse to nurture her own
baby?
Before
the mother came to collect the third baby had she met her fatal end?
All these random thoughts flushed
into my mind confusing me further. In the modern world there are mothers who do
kill or abandon their own kids. Like those phantoms, does this mystic cat want
to see the kitten’s death before it opens its own eyes and see this horrible
world?
Mum is always
against my idea of rearing a pussy. Her atrocious idea developed from her past
experience. When my brothers and I were very small we had a pet cat which was
always with me between my legs and hands and it used to sleep on my bed ,on the
pillows and on cushion chairs. My mother didn’t like this for hygienic reasons.
The squealing
of the kitten was so feeble that it seemed to have sent the message of SOS.
‘Saving the life of an innocent creature is a meritorious act ‘ thought I.’ Man
has six senses whereas all living being - animals, bird, insect, plants etc
have less senses than man. The sixth sense of man is the ability to think
rationally. So the man should think and act according to one’s self
righteousness. Saving the life is a meritorious
act and not taking any attempt to save the life is a great sin.’ Dad’s
philosophical idea urged me to save the kitten. The whole family unanimously
supported me to save the life of the poor creature.
I took the
box of kitten to the house. Like its own mother it is cared and fed. An
improvised apparatus was designed to feed the kitten. A syringe is fixed with a
cycle valve tube of three centimeters long. There is formula milk for kittens
but it was not available in my hometown. Further due to curfew hours my chance
of getting down the formula milk from other towns was limited. Having consulted
the officials at the veterinary office and those who have wide experience in
maintaining a dairy farm I fed the kitten with diluted anchor milk every two
hours. The orphan kitten was safe in my hands.
The mother
cat deserted the babe when she was three days old. After one or two days of
syringe-feeding the kitten had become quite plump. Grey and white hairs were
sprouting out all over its body. It drank enough milk. The milk was given
whenever she squealed. It normally happened every four hours. All the inmates
of the house including my mother was happy over the development of the kitten.
When I stroked on its back it was quite happy and it purred. It had been quite adopted
to the feeding pattern I introduced. When the babe was fifteen days old she
opened her little eyes to see this cruel world which makes the little ones
orphans.
Though she happened to be an orphan I thought she is
an uncrowned queen who survived from the perils of nature and defeated the
cruelty of the world. Queen! Queen! Hearing my repeated tender calls, her
tender legs staggered towards me with gratitude, love and pleasure. My
ferocious doggy, Duke had become friendly and loving with my little queen.
After another three days , the day dawned sending
various hues and patterns on the eastern sky. Squirrels’ chirping and the Seven
Sisters’ chattering and squeaking in the mango tree at the back of the house,
attracted my attention. I saw a white cat lingering under the mango tree. It
was exactly the white cat mum had
described us. It was supposed to be the mother cat we have been looking
for. In no time mum was there to confirm that it was the deserted mother. The
cat gracefully moved to a corner of the compound where there was a small
dilapidated cement structure and inside of it there was a thickly grown bush
and from where squealing of the two kittens was heard. Silently went to the
spot and stared into the bush and found the white cat lying down and the
kittens sucking its teat.
The appearance of the mother cat pushed me into a
struggle of mind – whether to leave my queen with the mother cat or have it
with me and rear it. ‘When the Corana pandemic subsides schools and
universities will reopen. Then mum will go to school and you will have to go to
the university. In that case who will take care and feed the kitten?’ My
brothers asked.
‘Mother’s feeding and warmth is very important to
young ones’ suggested dad. Mum said ‘The mother had left the kitten and went
away. I don’t think she would accept this kitten.’
I was unable to find a solution to this enigma.
Finally considering the welfare of my Queen I decided to leave her with her
mother. I had a fear, whether the mother cat may bite and kill her. Dad has
told me that mostly the male cats have
the peculiar habit of killing and eating the newborn kittens. ‘Yes the newborns
are just like mice. Does the appearance mislead them to be atrocious?’ I
thought.
Finally I took my Queen to the mother cat keeping her
on the ground where the mother cat could see clearly. I told ‘Pussy here’s your
kitten’. Leaving my Queen carefully on the ground I withdrew a few yards and
watching the actions of the cat carefully. My brother was also watching it from
behind the wall. My brother a tall chap was standing on a chair and watching
the cat which the cat can’t observe. When I left the Queen there, the cat
without any delay came to the kitten held its nape by its mouth and took it to
the dead leaves where the cat had its home. Then the mother started licking her
own kid passionately. I was extremely happy to see the mothers love towards its
kid although I had a feeling of loss for having bequeathed my Queen to its
mother.
My Queen when it was with me started to squeal
whenever it needed milk. But now the kittens do not squeal much when they are
with their mother, ‘Love and caress is more important to young ones’ I thought.
‘The
cat is a feeding mother, though a stranger we must feed her for the sake of
kittens’ mum advised me. At our meal times I left a dish of food in the place
where I left my queen. The food we offered was regularly taken if it is a non vegetable diet . Vegetarian foods were
usually left behind. At times we have observed the kittens nestling in the
mother’s lap. Everything went on smoothly and I was happy that my Queen is
quite safe in her mother’s custody.
On the fourth day night the sky was overcast with dark
clouds and it was very dark outside. By 9.30 pm we heard some noise on the
roof. Someone moving on the roof. Then we heard a squealing of a kitten. We
assumed that the cat was changing the bed of the kittens. In the morning I went
to the bush where I left my Queen. Neither the cat nor the kittens were visible
there. My dad, mum and brothers too had a quick look in the thick bush where
the cat and the kittens were. There was no trace of the creatures.
We were quite sure that the kittens are somewhere on
the roof. My brother had a reconnaissance on the roof by climbing a tall mango
tree nearby. He was able to locate the mother and her progenies at the highest
point of the house. The kitchen has a tall chimney for exhaust fumes. It is
higher than the roof. On the top of the chimney there is a concrete plate which
during the rainy season specifically on days of heavy down pours let rain water
ooze through and mixed with the carbon dust deposited on the inner walls of the
chimney and down draught very thick carbonic acid. To get rid of this menace we have made a small
roof for the chimney over the concrete plate. There is only a narrow space
through which a cat can only
squeeze through . Like Tennyson’s eagle
on the top of a steep mountain , the mother cat has found the highest place in
the house as the safest place to keep her choice of babies.
Mum
said ‘Keeping the small kittens on the top of the chimney is very dangerous. If
the small ones happened to fall down, it would be the end of them.
‘The cat won’t keep its kittens there for long. It’s
said that cats change their babies’ home seven times’ mentioned dad. While
changing location if the mother leaves one of them on the chimney top there is
no way to save it’ I thought.
At times the squealing is heard and we were quite
satisfied that the mother and the kitten are there on the chimney top.
Last night having had the dinner the cat shifted its
place and we had no way to provide food to the cat in the morning or noon. ‘The
mother must eat well and feed the young ones especially my Queen’. I am worried
over this.
By 3’o clock
mum was doing some odd jobs out at the back side of the compound. Intuitively
she starsed into that thickly grown bushes where the cat had its kittens. There
she noticed something like our Queen lying motionless in the dead leaves. She
moved closer and confirmed that it was the Queen, left there lonely among the
dry dead leaves. When the mother cat changed its location the previous night it
had left my Queen there.
Mum called us at the top of her voice. We ran there to
rescue the baby. No one can simply reach the spot. A path towards the kitten
was made by cutting down the small thorny plants. Took the thin thing in both
my hands and I ran home. The plump Queen has become very thin. There was
haggardness on its little face and in its whole body. The small clear eyes were
half closed. The kitten was too tired to squeal or make any noise. Had the
Queen made any noise after the departure of the mother and the two kittens in
the night or in the morning we could have taken the kitten into our possession.
In no time mum prepared some milk. I fed the baby with
the improvised apparatus we had. It drank a little-Not much. Then it fell
asleep. ‘The drink had given her some tiredness. Let her sleep for some time.’
said mum. After half an hour she woke up and I stoked on her back. She got up.
When I called her Queen! Queen! in my tender voice she was staggering towards
me. I took her in my hands and fed her a little more milk. She drank. When I
left her on her bed she lay motionless for a few seconds then vomited the milk
it drank.
Then ….then ……it took its last breath and closed
her little eyes forever. My eyes that were wide open at her last moments shed
tears that fell on her thin dead body. My brothers and I along with my parents
took her body to the garden, dig a grave kept her in, covered with a shroud,
offered some flowers and paid our last respect.
After the burial I entered the house with a heavy heart that made my dad
speak towards me. He said ‘without any selfish motive you took sincere effort
to save the life of your kitten. It’s really a meritorious act. But it is the
karma of the kitten that killed her. Both birth and death are natural orders of
life. Death of course comes at any time in any form. The kitten may have a
better life in her next birth. Dad’s words enlightened me a lot and relieved
the heavy weight in my heart. I repeated within myself a Sanskrit line of verse
from the holy Vedas which I used to
pronounce at the end of our daily prayers at school. ‘Loga Samatha Sugino
Bahanthu ‘ which means all beings on earth be happy.
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